The web is a strongly visual medium, she says. Good design helps support the
content, leading the visitor’s eye from here to there and directing
them through your message layer by layer, step by step.
This is especially so in the formatting of an effective landing page.

Basic guidelines:

Scrutinize your competition’s design and organization flow of their landing pages: Go through their conversation process and note the places where you feel a bit stumped or put off. Then go back to your own landing page and compare. Consider what you could revise or eliminate for better effect.

Put your most critical landing page elements in the upper 300 pixels of the page: Usability research shows over half of your site visitors will NOT scroll “below the fold.” So forget the warm-up copy, get right to the point, and keep your value proposition at first screen view.

Think simple: Use a one-column format with ample margins and white space to increase reading comprehension. Break up big paragraphs into smaller paragraphs — and no more than 5 lines per. You want to encourage visitors to read and engage with your message. Dense-looking copy doesn’t get read, period.

Be obvious and use standard usage conventions: Underline your links, be clear. descriptive and specific when describing them. No visitor should have to work to use your page or understand your message.

Make sure your page loads quickly: There are still millions of people using dial-up. Depending on your marketing and your product/service mix, strive for an 8-second or less page load. Don’t plump your page with unnecessary graphics. Optimize essential graphics to reduce file size and load time.

Roberta also offers 5 more tips you’ll want to review and keep handy:

Format your page according to the F-Pattern Eye-Tracking Principle:
Web readers tend to track through content in a rough F-shaped pattern.
So format important images flush left. (For more on this, see Jakob Nielsen’s eyetracking research.

Use the same color palette/visual elements from your ads on your landing page:
There should be a smooth, consistent flow to help keep your prospect
oriented and assured that they are indeed “landed” in the right place.

No clipart! Choose a single dominant photo image to be your hero shot:
Use a product photo or, in the case of a service, you could use your
logo or even a photo of your location. Make it clickable and don’t
forget to add a benefit-rich caption.

Put your message, copy or image, close to the middle of your page. Less critical elements can be placed in sidebars or perhaps even eliminated.

Make it easy to complete your input form: For
example, have the input cursor hop instantly from field to field upon
completion. Let your user tab around fields. No drop-down menus,
require only a checkbox action. And my personal favorite —
auto-populate any fields you can.